


Pop Tarts, Cheeto Crumbs

by Miran4242



Series: Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A little angst, And Failing, Can you blame her?, College AU, F/F, Fluff, Regina POV, Regina is trying not to catch feelings, They're both dumb lesbians, she needs a hug, touch starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23903323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miran4242/pseuds/Miran4242
Summary: A late night snack run.
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan
Series: Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1459573
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	Pop Tarts, Cheeto Crumbs

**Author's Note:**

> It's Quarantine babey!!!! Nothing else to do but write about fictional lesbians amirite??

Regina was...exhausted. Her eyes were bleary, and the words of her textbook were swimming around her in little pirouettes. She had made a sensible cup of coffee, changed into her sweatpants and big t-shirt, and curled up on the couch with her sticky notes and highlighters. But even her favorite sticky notes could not make her keep her eyes open. She sighed, after dozing off for a third time.

“I can’t do thiiis!” Emma swept down the hall, plopping down on the smaller couch across from her. It looked as though she'd been caught up in a similar occupation. She let her police exam prep book plop unopened on her stomach. “Why did I wanna be a police officer again?”

“I’m sure it had something to do with the donuts.” Regina said, smiling.

Regina was growing to enjoy the moment of surprise on Emma’s face whenever she made a joke. The blonde recovered quickly.

“Oh yeah, that was it.” She sighed and sat up, her hair comically messy from her dramatic flopping. “Is studying easy for you?”

On one hand, she had just been falling asleep. But on the other hand, she really didn’t want to break whatever aura of capability she had. Her mother had always stressed the importance of maintaining appearances.

“I wouldn’t say easy,” She said with a small quirk of her lips.

“Sure, I bet you're like a whole week ahead. I bet like you have study guides and everything.”

Regina did have a couple study guides started, so this was true.

Emma let out another sigh. “You know what I need?”

Regina felt a definite flutter in her chest looking in Emma’s eyes. The foolish and girl-like part of her wished Emma would say her. It was stupid, this crush she had. But it was hard not to love someone who made you hot chocolate after a bad dream a few weeks after meeting you. Or someone who couldn’t bake cookies. Or someone with blonde hair and strong arms and a smile-

Anyway.

“What?” Regina put her highlighter down, placing her book down next to her.

“Snacks! Let’s go on a snack run.”

“It’s 11 o’clock at night, where exactly are we going to get snacks?”

Emma was already moving, grabbing her red coat from the hook by the door. Reginas own looked heavy and black next to it. “Gas station, come on!”

“I'm not dressed.” The last time she had gone outside in her pajamas she had been 6.

“It’s a gas station, Regina, not the academy awards, you’ll be fine.” Emma held out her hands for Regna to grab. On one hand, she was pretty sure that this would waste time that she didn’t have to study. On the other hand, she could use a walk, and the excitement in Emma’s eyes was enough for it to be worth it.

“Ok, Ok!” She grabbed Emma’s hand, it was warm and softer than she would have imagined. They hadn’t talked about that night, afterwards, but Regina could still remember what her skin felt like, and what it had been like to wake up next to her. She was stupid of course. She thinks they called it touch starved, so desperate for human contact that she fell in love with the first person who touched her. It was so much easier to be distant. It didn’t hurt as much.

But Emma had found her way in and Regina could not deny the way she felt. The last time had been Daniel, and with the way that had turned out, Regina was not keen to fall again. For so long her life had been: Get Into Law School. And now it was: Become a Lawyer. There wasn’t space for something else. At least that’s what she told herself when she caught herself looking at Emma for a bit too long. And that’s what she told herself as they made their way into the cool fall night.

The gas station was a block over, across the street from the coffee shop Regina sometimes went to when studying at home was making her head swim. The leaves on the trees were starting to change color, and the air was brisk. If Regina squinted she could imagine her breath coloring the night air. All signs of exhaustion were gone from Emma as she strode purposefully toward snacks.

The gas station attendant did not even bother looking up as they went in.

“I need poptarts.” Emma rushed to the snack aisle, grabbing three packages of Pop-Tarts with a surprising speed.

“I’ve never eaten one.” Regina commented, looking at the granola bars. She was considering pretzels as well.

Emma looked dumbfounded. “Never had a Pop-Tart? Not even a strawberry one or something when you were a kid?”

Regina laughed, imagining her mother giving her a Pop-Tart as a child. Anything with more sugar than an apple was largely looked upon as the devil himself. “No. Never.”

Emma moved to grab more Pop-Tarts. “Oh you are definitely missing out. We’re going to educate you on snack foods. I bet you’ve never had a twinkle either. “

Regina admitted that she had not and Emma shook her head. “Absolutely unacceptable.”

Emma dragged her through every aisle in the place, pointing a snack foods and grabbing them if Regina said she hadn’t eaten them. They ended up with Pringles, Funyuns, Twinkies, Slim Jims, Cheetos(spicy and regular), Gushers and Fig Newtons. Regina even managed to grab the granola bars she wanted in the first place on the way out.

Control was something she coveted, more than almost anything. Ask her before she’d moved in with Emma to let someone buy her snack and she would have said no. She didn’t even like when others bought her surprise gifts of food. She wanted to control that at least. But with Emma, sometimes everything felt easy. How bad could a Twinkie be?

The gas station attendant continued his policy of apathy, not flinching at the quantity of food they were purchasing. Regina moved to her wallet but Emma stopped her.

“Please, this is for science.”

Regina rolled her eyes, and let her pay. They hustled home. Regina guessed it had been perhaps half an hour of snack searching, but she didn’t look at her phone to check. She was too busy listening to Emma talk about snack foods.

“I swear, Cheetos saved my life in high school.”

“Hopefully they will have a similar effect on me.” She definitely needed someone to save her. Emma’s soft green scarf was tucked around her neck, which made the blonde of her hair stand out like stalks of wheat. It was impossible for a moment for Regina to focus on the next story Emma was telling. She was focused on the individual strands as they fluttered through the wind. Which led her to look down Emma’s back, and to her jeans…

“I mean he didn’t know I’d stolen them but he knew he was not getting them back. You know?

Regina looked up to see that they were outside of their apartment, Emma fumbling for the keys while also holding snacks. She somehow managed it and they went inside. Emma laid the snacks out over their coffee table. Emma took her seat back on the couch, placing her prep book back on her lap. She gestured to their haul.

“Ladies first” She said.

Regina took the time to hang up her jacket, and resettle with her sticky notes before looking at the brightly colored packages.

“Pop-Tarts.” She said. They seemed safest. They had picked cinnamon sugar, as Emma had said they were the quintessential flavor. Emma grabbed the package and hopped over to Regina's couch. She opened the package and pulled one of the Pop-Tarts out of it. She handed it to Regina.

“Do we need to toast them?”

Emma scoffed. “Only if you want to waste time. “

Regina took that expert advice and took a bite. It was… sugary. The cinnamon was almost pleasant though, although the dough was nothing to write home about. Overall she didn’t quite see what she was missing. “It’s...fine.” She said trying to pick her words carefully so as not to insult Emma’s tastes.

Emma laughed. “You don’t have to like it Regina, I just think it’s important that you try it.”

There was something in those words that made Regina want to tear up. She wasn’t sure what. She decided not to think about it too much.

Regina smiled. “Well then consider it tried. What’s next.”

They went through the snack pile, homework forgotten. Not a fan of Funyuns (bad taste), the Gushers (unpleasant feel) or the Slim Jims (something about dried meat). The Pringles were passable and even she could not deny the appeal of the Twinkies. The last thing they tasted was the Cheetos.

“Lets do the regular first. You might not want to taste anything after the Flamin’ Hot.”

Regina could handle spice, but she was not in charge here. Emma popped open the bag, and Regina noticed that her fingers were still covered in various crumbs. There was something endearing about it. Although Regina was moments away from getting a napkin.

Emma motioned toward the now open package. Regina reached in, already disliking the feeling of dust on her hands. The cheeto itself was a similar misshapen orange lump that she recognized from tv commercials and fuzzy memories of kid’s parties as a child. She tried it.

She liked it. The cheeziness was not as much as she’d thought and the way they melted in her mouth was not horrible. She reached for another one.

“We scored!” Emma said excitedly. “You like them?”

The excitement on Emma’s face made Regina glad she liked them as well. “Best so far.” She affirmed.

"Fantastic! Oh,” Emma looked at her intently. “You have a little...I can get it.”

Regina watched a lot of romantic comedies. It was a guilty pleasure of hers, something she would turn on as a reward for studying with a glass of wine or on days when she was feeling exceptionally horrible. In them, there was always a moment when things seemed to move in slow motion, when the two people came together in one seemingly incongruous moment that solidified the fact that these two people would end up together. She was not so romantic as to assume that the moment Emma reached her hand to wipe cheese dust from the corner of her mouth was it.

But it sure felt like it.

It was the first time they had really touched intimately since that night, and Regina felt every part of her body react to the simple feeling of Emma’s hand against her face. She saw, with absolute clarity what it would feel like if Emma pulled her close, imagined, painfully, what it would be like to kiss her.

Regina jerked back. Wiping her mouth in the place where Emma’s fingers had been, as though to wipe the feeling of it away.

Emma flinched. “Sorry. I-”

“It’s fine.” Regina felt like her skin was on fire. She didn’t need to try the Flaming Hot Cheetos. She could imagine how it would feel from the heat on her skin. This was her fault. She had been stupid. She had let herself get too close and now? How was she supposed to function when Emma looked at her like that? With all the innocence of a lost puppy.

She began gathering her supplies, shifting snack foods aside as she grabbed her book and her post-its. She had lost enough time as is. She could study in her room.

“Regina?”

“I think I should probably get back to studying.” She stood up, only able to look at hurt green eyes for so long. “I’ve used up enough time already.” She tried not to say wasted, but the omission seemed to be communicated anyway.

“Yeah, sure.” Emma moved over to her own couch once more. She grabbed her discarded book and thumbed through it. “You should take the Cheetos, though. Since you like them.”

Regina hesitated, but grabbed the bag and rushed down the hall. As soon as she reached her room she shut the door, exhaling as she placed her books neatly on her desk. Her window overlooked the neighborhood, and light was still winking softely as other people did their late night studying or reading or whatever occupied late night hours. She wished, not for the first time that she wasn’t like this. That she could just focus on men, or even just on law. Her life. Here real life. But there was something that ached, deep inside of her to be loved. Loved by Emma, specifically. She was so close, and so warm, and so kind.

But she was her roommate, and essentially a stranger to boot. And what were the chances? That she felt the same?

Regina sat on her bed, watching moonlight and headlights dance together outside her window.

She cried.


End file.
